Category Archives: Occupy Wall Street

It’s a movement.

#OWS: The Shocking Truth about Naomi Wolf's Journalistic Hackery [updated]

Posted on November 25, 2011 by | 65 Comments

Rumormongering at its most despicable.

Two weeks ago, a rumor circulated that the Department of Homeland Security was “behind” the crackdown at Zuccotti Park. The rumor originated with Michael Moore who got it from a thinly-sourced article in Examiner.com. I wrote about it here and here.

The author of the Examiner.com article, Rick Ellis, published multiple updates to his thinly-sourced post, and promised that he would provide more information once he had it. That was on November 15. No further information has been provided.

I figured it had been settled.  As Joshua Holland, writing for Alternet noted, “There’s a lot of speculation, but very little substance to the tale of the “nationwide” crackdown on the Occupy movement. ”

So I figured this rumor would be put to bed.  I was wrong.

Today — ten days after the rumor had been debunked — Naomi Wolf saw fit to write an article so fraught with hyperbole — “what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war” — and so utterly fact-free that its publication should hang like an albatross around Naomi Wolf’s neck for the rest of her career.  It is Judith Miller-style hackery, and it is shameless.

Karoli has the story in a post aptly titled “How Bullshit Magically Turns into Fact“:

Naomi Wolf wrote a nonsensical piece today that’s being spammed all over Twitter. It asserts that there is a deliberate plot afoot via collusion by the United States Congress, the Department of Homeland Security and our oligarchical overlords to undermine the very populist, leaderless Occupy Wall Street movement. One of her key pieces of evidence is an unsupported and unverified report that 18 mayors coordinated their crackdowns with the Department of Homeland Security. There’s only one problem with that: It’s nothing more than innuendo. Here, let me show you. Continue reading →

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Posted in Balloon Juice Cross-Posts, Occupy Wall Street, Our Pundits of Perpetual Disappointment, What the Crap!?

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Open Letter to #OWS: “Oh, so NOW Police Brutality matters?!” by @BlackCanseco

Posted on November 25, 2011 by | 40 Comments

[Hi there. This is a guest blog post from friend and reader Black Canseco. -ABLxx]

Dear Occupy Wall Street:

Police brutality in America did not begin with you. It’s older than you, older than your encampments and older than your sudden awareness of it.
As one of the 99% you claim to champion, I for example, have seen police brutality firsthand throughout my childhood and my adult life right on to this day. As an African American male I have seen what happens when you occupy black skin in the presence of a police officer. I’ve buried friends who were shot by police despite having broken no laws. I’ve seen police batons and fists, backs of squad cars and squad carhoods used as weapons—not because I or my fellow African Americans were protesting or making any public statements, but simply because we were breathing and existing outside our homes.

As one of the 99% you claim to champion it’s my belief that Occupy Wall Street’s best hope of addressing police brutality is to first understand that police brutality did not begin with any occupation movement nor has it ever been limited to the parks, college campuses and gatherings where you are.

For every OWS encampment there have been hundreds of unarmed black men have been shot by police, sometimes in the back for occupying little more than their own skin. For every OWS participant that has been pepper-sprayed there have been hundreds upon hundreds of African American who have been beaten by police often within their own neighborhoods. For every OWS participant that’s been zip-tied and carted off to jail legions of African Americans and Latinos have been unfairly prosecuted and excessively sentenced by local, state and even federal courts.

But until Police Brutality was visited up on OWS protestors it was a complete and total non-issue for the Occupy Movement. There was no outrage from current OWS supporters when even the most famous of police injustices occurred. Unfortunately it has taken the faces of victims of police brutality to become Whiter, seemingly more educated, seemingly more “mainstream” for police brutality and injustice to even register as blips on OWS’s radar. (And don’t think that this obvious and observable fact has been lost on the millions of people of color who have yet to join the occupy movement.) Continue reading →

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Posted in Occupy Wall Street, Submissions from Readers

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Tweet of the Day – The Naomi Who Cried Wolf

Posted on November 25, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Apropos of this nonsense about Obama fomenting a civil war by greenlighting #OWS crackdowns.

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Posted in Occupy Wall Street, Tweet of the Day

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Wal-Mart Shopper Casually Pepper Sprays Other Shoppers

Posted on November 25, 2011 by | 3 Comments

The savings made her do it.

A woman shopping with her two kids at a Wal-Mart in Northridge figured she’d jump on the “casually pepper spray everything” train by pepper spraying other Wal-Mart shoppers to keep them from buying what was constitutionally hers:

A woman who pepper-sprayed other shoppers Thursday night at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch had armed herself with the caustic spray to gain an advantage in the fight for merchandise at the Black Friday sale, a fire captain said.

The woman, who is still being sought, used the spray in more than one area of the Wal-Mart “to gain preferred access to a variety of locations in the store,” said Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson.

“She was competitive shopping,” he said. Continue reading →

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Posted in Balloon Juice Cross-Posts, Criminally Stupid, Occupy Wall Street, What the Crap!?

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#OWS Protestors Mic Check President Obama; Get Shouted Down by Obama Supporters

Posted on November 22, 2011 by | 85 Comments

Occupy Wall Street is losing its focus.

President Obama was in New Hampshire giving a jobs speech when a bunch of occupiers started shouting incoherently and were immediately shouted down by Obama supporters:

According to Think Progress,  “a protestor shouted ‘mic check’ and others joined in with shouts.” Ok.  Sure — why not.  All I heard was some incoherent yelling immediately followed by chants of “Obama! Obama!” and I bet that’s what most people who watch this video will hear as well.

The pro-Obama chanting combined with Obama’s handling of the #OWS hecklers — “‘families like yours, young people like the ones here today — including the ones who were just chanting at me — you’re the reason that I ran for office in the first place.’” — makes this video good for the Obama campaign and not so great for Occupy Wall Street (which is already losing public support.) Continue reading →

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Posted in Obama 2012: Yes We Will!, Occupy Wall Street

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Fox News and Casually Pepper Spray Everything (Especially Liberals)

Posted on November 21, 2011 by | 6 Comments

Sheer dumbassery.

Of course Fox News stands with Officer Pepper Spray.

From Gawker:

“I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” Bill O’Reilly said tonight, discussing the appalling use of pepper spray by UC Davis police on Friday. No, God forbid we Monday-morning quarterback the police, especially, as O’Reilly continued, “at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.”

Indeed: what right do we have to think that Lt. John Pike should probably not have indifferently dusted peacefully sitting protesters with pepper spray from only a few feet away? And, gosh, even if we were going to Monday-morning quarterback the police, shouldn’t we remember, as Megyn Kelly tells O’Reilly, that pepper spray is “a food product, essentially”?

What’s the big deal?  It’s just food.  And besides, when it comes to policing librulz, anything goes!

Fox News is a parody of Fox News.

By the way?  Casually Pepper Spray Everything is a meme now, because of course it is.


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Posted in Fox News Fvckery, Occupy Wall Street

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Tiny Violins: The "Homeless Halloween Firm" is out of Business

Posted on November 21, 2011 by | 6 Comments

Feel that?  That’s the sweet caress of schadenfreude.

(via New York Times)

Remember the foreclosure law firm that celebrated Halloween by dressing up like the homeless and mocking those whose homes had been foreclosed?

Well, looks like the firm, Steven J. Baum P.C., has had to shut its doors, and the firm’s named partner blames New York Times reporter Joe Nocera for the firm’s downfall.

From Talking Points Memo:

Steven J. Baum P.C., a firm that specialized in foreclosures, is closing its doors a month after photos showing employees celebrating Halloween by dressing like the homeless surfaced in a New York Times column by Joe Nocera. Nocera wrote a follow up column this weekend, in which he quoted an angry email he received from Mr. Baum himself. The firm announced the shuttering via press release and was reported by the NYT: Continue reading →

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Posted in Balloon Juice Cross-Posts, Criminally Stupid, Occupy Wall Street

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Tweet of the Day: #OWS Violence and Black Experience

Posted on November 19, 2011 by | 18 Comments

The violence being visited upon Occupiers across the country is shocking, but also familiar.

For me, it is so important that people stop and consider that the police brutality — while horrific, egregious, and even shocking to some — has been part of the daily experience for many people of color for as long as we can remember. I need for people to stop and consider this point.

But even if folks can’t or won’t consider this point, I still hope that this collective struggle can become a learning experience that binds the broken pieces of the left. I hope that those who have personally experienced such brutality in the past, or who are part of communities that are routinely subject to such brutality can find it within themselves to treat those (our white homies) who are suffering this brutality anew with patience and understanding.

And I hope that those who previously never imagined that they could be subjected to this kind of police brutality will grow to understand what it’s like for communities who have learned to live with the inevitability of this type of violence.

I think if we keep talking and keep trying to make connections with one another, there’s nothing we can’t do.

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Posted in Occupy Wall Street, Tweet of the Day

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Police Pepper Spray #OWS Student Protestors Directly in their Faces at Occupy Davis

Posted on November 18, 2011 by | 10 Comments

This is horrifying and brilliant all at once.

Today at Occupy Davis, a police officer approached a group of students sitting in a line peacefully on the ground, walked up and down the line and pepper-sprayed them directly in the face — as one would spray pesticide on weeds. What you’ll see in this video is such a callous display of police brutality, I don’t know how this police officer is going to go home and look at himself in the mirror.

As the students cry “Shame on you!” the police arrest a few students; but as the crowd circles them — non-threateningly, but insistent — the police begin to retreat. Then, amazingly, the students (via People’s mic) offer the retreating police a moment of peace: “We are willing to give you a brief moment of peace so that you may take your weapons and your friends and go. Please do not return.”

And the police do.

It’s frightening and amazing to watch:

Here’s contact information (via Twitter, of course): Continue reading →

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Posted in Occupy Wall Street

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